The main legal point established in the judgment is that the revisional authority should not interfere with findings of fact recorded by the appellate authority unless such findings can be regarded as 'improper' and that the application of legal provisions should be based on pleadings and proof.

V. Balakrishna Eradi, J.

1. The petitioner is the owner of a building in Payyannur amsom. The ground floor portion of the said building consisting of three shop rooms and their anterooms had been let out by the petitioner to the 1st respondent under a kychit dated 29.11.1962 executed by the latter in the petitioner's favour. The petitioner filed R.C.O.P. No. 3 of 1964 before the Rent Controller, Payyannur under S.11(2), (3) and (8) of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1959, (Act 16 of 1959) for eviction of the 1st respondent from the building on the grounds of non payment of arrears of rent and bona fide need for the petitioner's own occupation.

2. The case of the petitioner was that the upstairs portion of the building in which he was residing was totally inadequate for the needs of his family, which consisted of 15 members at the time of the petitioner's making the application, that the petitioner was also unable to climb up the stairs due to old age and illness and that therefore he bona fide needed the rooms on the ground floor for his own occupation and for that of the members of his family depending on him. It was also pleaded that the tenant had kept the rent in arrears from the 1st Kanni, 1138 onwards.

3. The 1st respondent contended that though he had executed a kychit in favour of the petitioner on 29-11-1952 in respect of the shop rooms, in question, he had been in possession of the said rooms as a tenant under the petitioner even prior thereto and that before the date of the kychit he had already made over the rooms to his two sons Madhavan and Balakrishnan who were conducting their trade therein. According to the 1st respondent, the said two persons are the real tenants of the building and the petition was not maintainable against him in as much as he was not in actual possession of the building. He also denied the case of bona fide need put forward by the landlord.

4. The Rent Controller by his order evidenced by Ext. P1 dismissed the petition holding that even though originally the letting of one shop room was in favour of the 1st respondent, lie had made over the said room to his son Madhavan, and that Madhavan and Balakrishnan being in actual possession of the shop rooms no order for eviction could be passed against the 1st respondent. The plea put forward by the petitioner that he needed the building bona fide for his own occupation was also found against by the Rent Controller.

5. The petitioner preferred an appeal before the Subordinate Judge of Tellicherry. The learned Subordinate Judge, after a detailed consideration of the entire evidence adduced in the case, came to the conclusion that the case set up by the 1st respondent that notwithstanding the kychit evidencing the lease having been executed by him, the building in question was in the possession not of himself but of his sons and that they were the real tenants could not be accepted as true. The learned Subordinate Judge held that if the alleged transfer of exclusive possession of the shop by the 1st respondent to his sons long prior to 1952 were true it was absolutely unlikely that the kychit Ext. A1 would have been executed on 29-11-1952 by the 1st respondent. The circumstance that neither of the sons who were said to be the persons in actual possession of the shops had come forward to give evidence in support of the 1st respondent's version and also that not one out of the several rent receipts stated to have been obtained by them directly from the petitioner in respect of their occupation of the shop rooms had been produced in the case, was strongly relied on by the learned Subordinate Judge. The learned Subordinate Judge was of the view that the Rent Controller Court had erred in basing its finding almost entirely on the entries contained in certain account books of Madhavan and Balakrishnan which were produced by the respondent for the purpose of proving payment of rent by them. On the question of bona fide need also the le